Living with Mold in Tampa: Part 2—Treatment

Editor’s Note: It was three weeks ago that we published Part I of a two-part guest blog post on the challenges of living with mold in Tampa, Florida. That post, Living with Mold in Tampa: Part 1 — Recognizing the Warning Signs,” was authored by the Tampa-based medical team at BioDesign Wellness Center. If you read the post, you learned about the symptoms of mold illness and the signs your home may be contaminated with toxic mold. The post also described the four mold toxins that are the biggest concerns: Ochratoxins, Aflatoxins, Trichothecenes, and Gliotoxin. In Part II of the series, which appears below, BioDesign Wellness presents the three-step diagnostic and treatment procedure they recommend for people living with mold:

Living with Mold in Tampa: Part 2—Treatment

By the Medical Team at BioDesign Wellness Center

If you have reason to suspect the presence of mold in your home, workplace, or anywhere else you spend considerable time, we encourage you to have the building inspected by professionals who have a thorough understanding of mold and its potential impact on human health. Dr. Shoemaker hosts an annual conference that mold inspectors and physicians attend together, so they can collaborate and share information on proper methods for detecting mold toxins in the home and in people. The inspectors who attend these conferences are the kinds of inspectors we here at BioDesign Wellness want coming to our patients’ homes. These inspectors give us the confidence that a full inspection has been conducted with the proper laboratory studies.

Most mold inspection companies do not go so far as to check the species of mold and the actual mold toxins being produced by the mold in the home. We have had patients who have spent money to have their homes checked and later found out that the inspection was not thorough enough, and mold was overlooked. We usually make this discovery after we find that the patient is not responding to treatment. Our work would have been much more effective and cost effective had the home been properly inspected and tested, so this is a key first step.

We cannot stress enough the importance of the mold inspection process. Just as doctors who don’t fully understand mold illness often miss it in their patients, so to do mold inspectors who lack the proper training and education, overlook it in homes. It’s simply because they did not know enough at the time to run the right tests, or they completely disregard relevant environmental factors. We don’t want a traditional mold inspector coming into your home who is not educated on the right testing methods and does not regularly discuss mold illness with his or her clients. A good mold inspector can actually start to identify why you are getting sick and will be looking through the home to find any hidden mold and it’s water or moisture source. They understand the importance of getting this first step right in order to put you and your family on the road to recovery.

In the Tampa Bay, FL area, we recommend Certified Mold Assessments as they have… Continue reading